10/09/2004

Tonopah Public Library

Tonopah is half ghost town located along highway 395 in Nevada, but as long as it has a gas station it will never die. I happen to really like Tonopah and am here for the weekend at a conference. Lucky me. It's got a fantastic museum, a wonderful old graveyard and creepy, decrepit buildings such as the abandoned Mizpah Hotel which is perpetually for sale; plus plenty of boarded-up miner shacks, not much bigger than the cots they once sheltered, to make even the dirt alleys ripe or rotten (according to your perspective) with history. Tonopah has had several boom and bust cycles but is just too mean to die. The surrounding playa is dotted with sun-bleached pyramid shaped piles of tailings left by crazed miners ransacking the desert for gold. It sprawls between several wind carved peaks but even they have been shaved down to nubs and there's a defunct mine pit right in the center of town. But I digress.

I just checked my website and found that none of the photos are loading! Fuck! It may be that the library's computers are too slow or their settings are super restricted, something along those lines, but other sites load just fine. If you have a second, I'd really appreciate it if you'd check a couple of links for me and let me know if you see the images. If you go to the Nevada Journal (and can see anything) check out the photo of Bill Bailey, Sheik of the Desert. I took that in the Tonopah Museum. From the looks of things, Bill Bailey was high up in the social hierarchy here perhaps only a tier or two down from Madame Taxscine, Tonopah's favorite Madame fondly referred to as the Little Desert Mother. She's in the Nevada Journal too. Here's those links: Ashabot - Nevada Journal
It's undoubtedly my fault but I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I check my site from other computers whenever I get the chance and usually things are okay. But this is bad. I don't know crap about building a website. I just bang around in FrontPage and hope I get things right. If anyone has any tips, I'd really appreciate hearing from you. You can leave a comment here or email me directly at ... ashaATashabotDOTcom ... I'll pick it up when I can. I'd prefer hearing from you in email so I have a better chance of picking your brain, but then maybe you don't want your brain picked.

In happier news from the road, John called this morning just minutes before we left. He got home about 10 last night!!! I was ecstatic. I wish they'd all come home. NOW.

3 comments:

someone said...

I got bill bailey by refreshing the page. it worked fine for me. However...your whole site hasn't loaded the intial pictures when I visit it for some time now -- maybe a month or two. Don't know if the two are related, just FYI.

Is Tonapah the town from the song "'Willing" by Linda Ronstadt? I'm bored, so i'll sing it for you: Well I been from Tucson, Tucumcari, Tehachapi and Tonapah; driven every kind of rig that's ever been made; driven the backroads so I wouldn't get weighed; and if you give me weed, whites and wine, I'll be willing to be movin'...." I love that song. I wondered where that town was. NIce reference.

asha said...

Thanks for the info. I always want to know, sooner the better. I don't know about the song but Tonopah is one of those places.

Kristiana said...

Everything loads fine from this end...
Happy Birthday to Mr. Mister. I am late getting things in the mail but I am sure you understand, right?